"It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present.— But if (& oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia & phosphoric salts,—light, heat, electricity &c present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter wd be instantly devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed."[2]

The change in air pressure caused by the phase of the Moon was first detected in 1847. A concurrent phenomenon, a change in temperature from volume changes of the atmosphere, was shown in 1932. The University of Washington scientists quantified the air pressure effect in an earlier paper (see figure).[12] The air pressure is higher when the Moon is overhead, or underfoot.

When the Moon is overhead, Earth's atmosphere will bulge towards it, there will be more atmosphere, so the weight of the atmosphere, its pressure, will be higher.[11] Higher pressure increases the temperature of the air; and, since warmer air can hold more moisture, the relative humidity is less so there's less chance of precipitation.[11] Using data from the joint NASA/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, Kohyama and Wallace were able to show that rainfall is slightly lighter when the moon is high in the sky.[11]

This is a very small effect, just about 1%, so it's not really noticeable.[11] Says Kohyama, "No one should carry an umbrella just because the moon is rising."[11] This finding would be a good test for climate models to see whether they're sensitive enough to reproduce this lunar effect.[11] This research was funded by the National Science Foundation and some Japanese agencies.[11]

The upper graph shows the air pressure, the middle graph shows the rate of change in air pressure, and the bottom graph shows the rainfall difference from the average. The change is less than one ten thousandth of an inch per hour.